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Friday, January 3, 2014

GA - U.S. Marshal: Fugitive Banker Declared Dead Last Year Homeless Before Arrest

Aubrey Lee Price

Brunswick, GA - A south Georgia bank director accused of
losing millions of investor dollars before vanishing was homeless and working
odd jobs before his arrest earlier this week, a U.S. marshal told a federal
judge Thursday.

U.S. District Judge James Graham in Brunswick formally
notified Aubrey Lee Price of the charges against him. The 47-year-old was
arrested Tuesday during a traffic stop on Interstate 95 in the coastal Georgia
city. The judge set a bond hearing for Monday in Savannah.

Price had disappeared in June 2012 after sending a rambling
letter to his family and acquaintances that investigators described as a
confession. The letter said he had lost millions in investors’ dollars and
planned to kill himself by jumping from a ferry in Florida.

A Florida judge declared him dead a year ago, but FBI
authorities had said they didn’t believe Price was dead and continued to search
for him.

The U.S. marshal said at the hearing Thursday that Price
told authorities he’d been working as a migrant worker, accepting cash for odd
jobs, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

An FBI spokesman said Wednesday that Price told authorities
his family didn’t know he was still alive and that he had returned to Georgia
to renew the tag on his truck. It wasn’t clear where he’d been for the previous
18 months.

Price was indicted in federal court in Savannah in July 2012
on charges of taking $21 million from a small south Georgia bank where he was
director. He was also accused of taking many millions more from investors in
his money management business. He faces federal wire fraud charges in New York.

Price left his home in south Georgia on June 16, 2012,
telling his family he was headed to Guatemala for business, authorities have
said. Two days later, Price’s family and acquaintances received letters saying
he was going to Key West to board a ferry headed to Fort Meyers and planned to
jump off somewhere along the way to end his life.

“My depression and discouragement have driven me to deep
anxiety, fear and shame. I am emotionally overwhelmed and incapable of
continuing in this life,” said a rambling confession letter investigators
believe was written by Price.

“I created false statements, covered up my losses and
deceived and hurt the very people I was trying to help,” the letter said.

Credit card records showed he purchased dive weights and a
ferry ticket. The ferry ticket was scanned at the boarding point, and security
camera footage released by the FBI about six weeks after his disappearance
showed Price at the Key West, Fla., airport and ferry terminal on the day he
disappeared.

He was arrested Tuesday when Glynn County sheriff’s deputies
pulled over a 2001 Dodge on the interstate because they thought its window tint
was too dark, Sheriff E. Neal Jump was quoted by the Journal-Constitution as
saying. Deputies arrested Price after finding fake IDs in the vehicle.